


Daughter Mine

by LupitaBadu



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-14 03:56:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17501084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LupitaBadu/pseuds/LupitaBadu
Summary: A young woman introduces herself as Kakashi's daughter, altering his life altogether.





	Daughter Mine

Kakashi ignored the pounding behind his head, unsure at this point if he could distinguish it from the headache knocking against the inside of his skull. If he kept his hands over his eyes he could also ignore Pakkun’s hard stare. He never would have made a contract with the pack if he’d known they were going to judge him like this over things he clearly had no capacity to deal with.

“Aren’t you going to answer her?” Bisuke asked, looking up from the bone she’d been chewing on.

“No,” Kakashi mumbled in to his fingers. “Maybe if I stay really quiet she’ll just go away.”

“I can hear you through the door,” a muffled voice told him in a tone so dry he shuddered; that was exactly what he would have sounded like as a woman.

Squirming in place, Kakashi tucked his body in tighter to himself. “I’m not home right now. Please leave a message after the beep.” Incredulous silence followed his statement until, as an afterthought, he added, “Boop.”

“Alright, listen–”

“Nuh-uh, that was a boop, not a beep. No messages! No daughters! No!”

“Oh shut up for two seconds you man-child. Mother always told me not to expect a great reaction when I came to find you so I’m not asking you for anything. I know you’ll need some time to process the idea – anyone would! – and she already told me you’re, uh, not the best with emotions. Look, I’ll be at the Golden Blossoms Inn for the next week and I would…appreciate it if we could at least talk.” Kakashi peeked down at his own shoes while the muffled voice hesitated. “I’ve never known my father as anything more than a rumor and a bingo book. I’d like to know you as a person too. But…I can understand if this is too much. Please consider it; just one conversation.”

Keeping very still, he listened to her footsteps as she backed away from the door and down the creaky wooden steps, then he traced her muted civilian chakra as she trailed slowly down the street. Only when she had passed out of the residential district did he finally take in a full breath and let it back out in an explosive rush. She was definitely right about one thing: he had no idea how to deal with whatever confusing emotions were rushing through him at the moment.

Pakkun was still staring at him when Kakashi lifted his head several minutes later.

“Quit looking at me like that,” he whined.

“She’s your pup,” his summons told him, ears pinned back with disapproval. “Don’t humans usually pack-bond with their pups right away?”

“It’s not that easy! Some random teenager just shows up on my doorstep and tells me I’m her father? I – I – even if it was true – what am I supposed to do!? I don’t know how to be a father! That’s Asuma’s gig, not mine.” Shoving himself off the floor, Kakashi shook his head and began to pace the living room.

“You could ask Asuma-san for tips?” Uhei suggested. The poor thing wilted immediately when Kakashi spun around to glare at him, dropping his head back to the floor with a low whine.

Pakkun trotted up the length of Bull’s back and perched on the bigger dog’s head, setting himself at the highest point available to him in the room without the indignity of climbing furniture. “Boss, you’re being stupid. Why bother worrying about it so much when we all know you’re going to end up talking to her anyway?”

“You don’t know that. Maybe I won’t! Maybe she really will disappear if I just ignore her!”

Three days later Kakashi was grateful that at least his summon had the mercy not to say ‘I told you so’ when he finally gave in. He vaguely recognized the young man who greeted him at the Golden Blossoms Inn as one of the academy students he had rejected before Team 7 was formed. The lad gave him directions to a room in the east wing where he stood for ten full minutes outside the door, hand raised but frozen and heart aching in his chest.

When she answered the door he was babbling almost before she had a chance to process who was there.

“You have to understand that it’s hard for me to speak the name ‘Rin’. And that I had no idea I had a daughter until you showed up. I was broken when I was half your age and it hasn’t gotten much better over the years.” Words spilled out of his mouth unfettered, his eyes as wide as hers with an equal amount of surprise. “I don’t know how to be a father. I barely know how to be human. Maybe this makes me a bad person but I don’t remember your mother and I’m sorry that I’m probably nothing like you imagined I might be.”

“Can we just…talk?” The girl cut in at last, jumping in when he paused for breath. Kakashi swallowed with some difficulty.

“I don’t know if I can be what you want me to be,” he warned her.

“For now, all I need you to be is here. I just want to get to know you.” Rin shuffling her feet, all hesitant teenage awkwardness. She looked so much like him at that age it was almost painful to look at her.

Nodding slowly, Kakashi drew himself up a little straighter, hands automatically sliding in to his pockets only to clench in to anxious fists. “Yeah, okay. Get to know me. I guess that’s alright. And…I guess I would…like to know you as well. As my…um…”

“Daughter,” she supplied helpfully. Then he giggled at his stunned expression.

“Right. Yes. That.”

“Would you like to come in?”

Kakashi very carefully considered her offer. “Yes,” he said at last. “I think I would.”

Stepping across the threshold felt a lot like stepping in to uncharted territory but – although he didn’t know it then – Kakashi would never once in all the years ahead of him regret taking that very important step.


End file.
